US likley to extend Internet Tax Ban

An interesting story in the FT this morning is how the US House of Representatives has voted to extend a ban on local authorities levying taxes on various internet activities including access. Originally set up to encourage internet access the latest seven year ban, while short of the permanent ban supporters wanted, means that technology companies can continue to invest in improving connection speeds and ecommerce activity without fear of future discriminatory taxes.

While broadband connectiuon in the US is widespread the actual line speeds are far below those elsewhere so this extended ban should help speed things up on that front.

It is nice to see countries actively helping business in the wider sense like this and let’s hope the UK does more of this type of things as well.